What sets Kelley School of Business apart?
ESSAY 2
- Respond to one of the following short essay prompts. (300 words)
a. My greatest memory is…
b. I’m most afraid of…
c. My greatest challenge has been…
d. I’m most proud of…
C. My greatest challenge has been…
My greatest challenge has been to deal with business uncertainties which have the power to make even the most thought after plan seem useless. Uncertainties not only highlight the hidden assumptions in the plan but they also highlight the importance of a time buffer while estimating how long say a project is going to take. The challenge however, has always been to calculate such buffers or at least to approach such a problem scientifically, that is why one of the knowledge gaps that I want to fill through the MBA is regarding managing uncertainties.
However, I believe managing uncertainties is an essential leadership exercise as it teaches how to stay calm and focused amidst commotion. Managing uncertainties has not only resulted in developing my intuition, but it has also made me not to seek perfection and to be prepared with contingencies.
As an example, I remember when during one drilling project we had missed a deadline because of a double whammy. On one hand two of our team members quit without notice and on the other the team which had to manufacture a rig as per our specifications simply could not understand English thereby drastically slowing down the manufacturing process. To manage the language problem and to compensate for the lost time, we decided to send a technical team to the rig manufacturer’s facility so that the technical modifications were made in real time during the manufacturing process. To manage the post attrition plan – my team had to put extra hours to achieve our goal.
Although, as a project manager for the entire project, I did manage to wrap up on time, the incident did highlight the need for better contingency planning and better scientific ways to predict the impacts of uncertainties.
Mission MBA 